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TMZ to Exit West Hollywood Headquarters for New Westside Office (Exclusive)

The company is negotiating a lease for 36,000 square feet of space at a former post office distribution center near Marina del Rey.

Warner Bros.-owned celebrity news organization TMZ is in final negotiations to sign a long-term lease for headquarters office space at a former post office distribution center near Marina del Rey, according to multiple commercial real estate sources.

The 10-year lease for 36,000 square feet at 13031 W. Jefferson Blvd. in Los Angeles is valued at about $15 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in March. TMZ, which operates a popular website and syndicated television newsmagazine show, would move into the new offices in early 2013.

Though TMZ would leave its current headquarters space in West Hollywood, its new Westside offices would still be within the so-called thirty-mile zone from which the website derives its name. (The TMZ, or Hollywood studio zone, is the area within a 30-mile radius of the intersection of West Beverly and North La Cienega boulevards.)

The former post office site is co-owned by Burbank-based real estate investor Worthe Real Estate Group and Shorenstein Properties, a San Francisco-based real estate investor. The companies purchased the 20-acre property across from Playa Vista last summer for $44 million.

Worthe and Shorenstein are remodeling the 380,000-square-foot building at the site; construction is expected to be completed this fall. The deal would be the first inked at the site by Worthe and Shorenstein.

Carl Muhlstein, executive vp at Cushman & Wakefield, is representing the landlord. He declined to comment.